Why We Hate Butterflies

Sounds like a funny title but the truth is, butterflies are a serious problem in the business world. Chasing them that is. In today's busy and sometimes chaotic world it's easy to get distracted and end up dreaming or chasing butterflies rather than staying the course and focusing on your goals, mission and the immediate tasks at hand. My advice, learn to hate butterflies as well. 

Focus on who you are, what you do, what the goal is and your next most immediate step toward it. Get focused in every aspect of your company from knowing what target audience or vertical market you want to go after, exactly what you sell and what your value proposition is making sure that you aren't trying to be all things to all people, getting your people focused on their mission and tasks to attain your focused goal and only promoting and selling to your focused market etc. 

There are zillions of things that can take you off course. Distractions. Butterflies. Get rid of them and learn to simplify your company to get focused and then get tunnel vision about that focus to work toward goal attainment. It may sound more "fun" or sexy to chase the constant new adventure or idea but it's wasted time and effort. They prevent you from true victory and goal attainment. 

 

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Focus

The other day I was going through my Twitter feed and saw a tweet asking a question to Gurbaksh Chahal  (a very successful entrepreneur who sold his last company for $300MM and the one before it for $40MM) about whether he get's tempted to work on other ideas while he is working on a company. His response... "never. Focus is everything." 

To me one of the biggest elements of failure or simply lack of success lies in most people's lack of ability to stay focused. I'll admit, I love millions of ideas as well and have a tendency to daydream from time to time but being that I have owned four companies, I know the power of focused attention and the deadliness of distractions or dispersals. Focus is everything. 

 

If you know what your company stands for, sells and delivers and have clearly named out or defined your product or service and then defined your goal or vision the only next step for you to take is to do everything that is focused toward executing the goals to attain the vision. Do not get distracted and do not let any other "bright ideas" enter the equation. Focus your time, energy and effort on your goal. 

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The Best Deal

There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

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The Best Deal

There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

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The Makings of a Group

The ultimate pursuit in business. To attain a group. A true team. Loyal, focused and driven to attain the goals of the group. It's fantastically difficult to attain but virtually indestructible once created. 

Here are the makings of a group as I see it:

1) Everyone is focused on an agreed upon goal. In other words, there's a mountain and everyone see's it and is focused on climbing it without any deviation or distractions. The goal needs to be completely known throughout the group, intertwined into everyday actions, targets and programs. "What will we do today to take the mountain?" Get a goal, make it known and pursue it.

2) The group thinks in futures, meaning that everyone in the group is focused on their future within the group. Where will we be in 2 years, 5 years, 20 years..... This then breeds loyalty to the group and therefore strengthens the group as a whole. A great group is one that no one would ever want to leave. 

3) The group works as a unit, synchronizing every action and coordinating efforts. No individuals are in the group, only one unit that operates as a unit knowing and acting with every area, division and department fully reliant and responsible for each other. 

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Sales, Selling Your People and Getting People to Sell

What role does sales play in your company? Have you recognized the fact that every person and every opportunity is another angle to sell? Let me clarify. Sales is intertwined into every aspect of your company.

You need to sell your products and services to your target market. You then need to sell and keep selling your people on the company, the task at hand and on your new clients that were just closed which motivates them to get the job done and carry forward what was sold. You then need to get people in your company to sell to your clients, your prospective public and the employees to constantly carry your company forward.

While there are many posts/titles in any company, everyone has a role in selling. A smile to a new client walking through the door sells. A welcome email to a new client sells. A follow up call to a client sells. Everyone in the company plays a role in selling to either cultivate new business, cater to and maintain current clients to ensure they are happy and are constantly sold on your company or to keep the team focused and motivated. The executive team, managers and CEO alike all sell the people of the company on the goals, future, mission at hand and on their specific tasks to motivate people to get the job done.

 

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Blockbuster Vs. Redbox

Approximately 5 years ago Blockbuster came up with a campaign to start sending clients late fees to collections. This lead me to start looking at their business model to see how powerful or infallible they really were. After looking at the company model and recent campaigns I realized that they were on their way out. This was in 2005.

Lately I have rented all of my movies from Redbox because it's fast, simple and inexpensive. It just makes a heck of a lot of sense. When comparing the two, Blockbuster had every opportunity in the world to evolve and scoop the market share early for this strategy that Redbox has executed but failed to do so.

I'm not sure if it was arrogance on the part of Blockbuster or lack of insight but they have clearly lost the battle already. I saw recent news that Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection and have noticed a few stores closing. Here is where I feel they failed:

1) Instead of focusing on making their process more customer centric focused, they alienated their customers by sending late fees to collections and ultimately ticking off a lot of people

2) They became too focused with trying to make the mail in rentals work in order to compete with Netflix and must of somehow completely missed the entire concept that Redbox executed.

 

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The Red Bull Way

When it comes to promo and getting the word out.... there is a standard and a bar which you can measure yourself by.... it's called Red Bull. Now there is a company that thinks BIG. They have plastered their brand, PR, Marketing and advertising absolutely everywhere.

I guarantee you that if it were not for their unbelievably HUGE promo efforts, the company would not be what they are today (which happens to be a billion dollar annual revenue producing machine) The drink is not exactly tasty. That factor has no role in their success though.

I admire this company for their sheer volume of promo and in their creative ways to get the word out.

So, what can we learn? Well, when looking at your promo efforts I would recommend that you address the volume and angles. In other words, what are you doing right now? How much promo, outflow, avenues are you using daily, weekly and monthly to make your companies products and/or services known. I tend to think that most companies grossly underestimate what they need to do. Companies get so focused on other things that are important but not nearly as important as driving in new business so heavily that your only major problem will be... how do you manage the inflow and deliver and service it?

Revenue should never be your concern. New clients should never be your concern. These things will come in floods if your promotion and sales efforts are actually sufficient and not sufficient per your normal standard.... I mean Red Bull type thinking.

Make a list and focus on how you can create a Red Bull size strategy to get the word out. Get absolutely crazy about promotion and driving in new business. Then focus on executing the strategy in an obsessive fashion to drive new customers/clients in the door. From there, you can then figure out how to deliver, how to service, quality etc but all of those items come after you have promoted, made your company known, gotten new sales, clients, customers etc. Your first priority should be on your front lines.... promotion!

When your scratching your head wondering why sales are down, why revenue is down etc. - look no further than your efforts to get the word out about your company to actively get in front of your audience and therefore cultivate new opportunities. That is the WHY.

So this week, think like Red Bull. They are a company that has gone completely berserk when it comes to promo.... and it's working like crazy. Make a list of new angles to drive in new business and execute, execute, execute....

- Robert Cornish
Richter10.2 Media Group
http://richter10point2.com

It's Christmas Time..... Promote

It’ that time of year again when companies frantically try to wrap up sales, collect income and push statistics for the year end bonuses, expenses and overall revenue numbers. Although it is such an improtant time of year, consistently I have found companies to become slow and lazy around this time. They seem to be hard to reach and have developed a bad case of procrastination…. The line “We will look into this after the new year…” seems to come up all too frequently…

Now is the time to promote! Get the word out and get in front of your target market fast! Saving all of your money and not spending money is not a strategy! Your focus should be on how to get in front of your target market audience to stay on their radar and close deals like crazy before the end of the year. Your company, your people and the entire economy is dependent upon large amounts of production, sales and revenue around this time of year so my strong recommendation is for you to promote. Promote your brand, promote your company, promote your products and services, promote in order to get new reaches, new sales and new revenue before the year is out.

If you have been operating in lazy mode or procrastination mode, my advice is to knock it off, pull up the socks and get into action now! While you wait for next year… there are thousands of companies and people making it happen now….this year!

Happy Holidays!

-Robert Cornish

The Fundamental Change

Currently the marketing, PR and advertising world is experiencing one of the most dramatic evolutions over the past 100 - 200 years in what traditionally were “tried and true” methods.

I am not sure too many people and professionals fully understand this. I deal with many companies, CEO’s and CMO’s on a daily basis and across the board there seems to be some level of awkwardness and discomfort with the rapid changes.

Over the past 100 to 200 years there have been very workable and fundamental ideas related to how marketing, PR and advertising basically worked and reached a specific audience. There were specific rules and methods to execute strategies that had workable formulas such as positioning, how to write ad copy, how to grab attention via posters, billboards and TV commercials etc. Basic marketing fundamentals like what the typical percent of response will be from a marketing campaign via direct mail, etc.

While all these methodologies worked extremely well all the way up to close to now, unbelievably.... they no longer do. These methods and ideas have run their course and have essentially gone through the stages of infancy from the beginning idea to maturity to dated and now obsolete. It’s incredible to even think about and seasoned professionals clearly seem uncomfortable about it. Speaking to an experienced CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who wants to still work off of, and hang on to, these old ideas can be rather frustrating as they try to apply something that is obsolete to a new way of thinking.

So what is relevant?

With New Media (social media, etc.) the way to communicate and engage an audience is different. It’s a conversation. It’s on-going and most of how the audience wants to be reached or is receptive to is being decided by the audience - not the marketing, advertising or PR firm. This is a very authentic and transparent approach. We aren’t trying to “spin” a story, we aren’t trying to scream a message and button at the audience to get a response and we aren’t trying to have the audience see a message 7-9 times so they will “act” So what are we trying to do?

We are focused on using new media tools (social media) as a platform to communicate with a specific target audience geared toward your company and use PR to build relations (relationships) with that target audience in order to spark conversations, increase word of mouth, generate buzz and result in interest and reach for the companies’ products or services via acceptance from that target audience.

We are authentically reaching out to get involved with the audience and make a company known to them to build awareness, brand loyalty and stay on the target audiences radar to in turn increase the sales and revenue.

I am sure you would agree that people are more inclined to do business with companies they:

1. Know
2. Like
3. Feel Comfortable With
4. Trust
5. Have a Relationship

Think this through for a second; think of a company you do business with or a person you do business with and then think about why? I am betting it’s because you know them or have a relationship with them or you personally like them or trust them. These ideas are the very essence of why new media (social media) is so powerful. It aligns with the basic way people buy and how sales typically occur.

Now I am not at all talking about spamming people on social media sites or being the “salesperson” that annoys everyone on Facebook! The idea here is to make it natural and in a PR way encompasses engagement, conversations, building new connections, making yourself known and ultimately building real relationships from a given target audience that is desirable to your company that will result in interest in reach for the company and therefore sales and revenue.

It’s not easy. It takes time and knowhow, but, when done correctly, it’s the most effective strategy you, or your company, could possibly apply in today’s market - just ask the audience!

Twitter: Male-dominated Social Media

We all know that Twitter has grown in over the past year. It is now one of the top 3 social media networking sites in the world. Ill admit it, im addicted to updating status messages, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were too.

In a suprising recent study that took place in May 2009 by the Harvard Business Review, the activities of a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users were closely watched. The results were unexpected.

It was found that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman.

Similarly, an average woman is 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman. Also, an average man is 40% more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman. These results cannot be explained by different tweeting activity - both men and women tweet at the same rate.

Looks like Twitter is a male-dominated social media networking site, and more women are just not much of “tweeters”.

Ali Magnano

Director of PR

Richter10.2 Media Group

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Ali Magnano
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Richter10.2 Media Group
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Starbucks uses Twitter in their online/offline Social Media Campaign

Since I’m on a roll with Starbucks and coffee, (I had my double cappuccino this morning with non-fat milk-see last blog), I thought I would research how Starbucks Coffee Company is using social media.

Starbucks already has a strong presence in social media. You can visit their Facebook, or if you are a Twitter fanatic you can find them there. Starbucks Twitter account has over 185,000 followers and the Facebook page has nearly 1.5 million fans.

Starbucks has recently launched “the biggest marketing effort it has undertaken,” according to the New York Times. The coffee company is displaying posters in major cities, and then challenging people to be the first to find and tweet a picture of their posters. Starbucks has other social media initiatives planned for this campaign. One is a contest for store employees to submit headlines for future ads and YouTube videos with coffee experts talking about Starbucks coffee. Starbucks’ social media presence gave it an advantage over competitors with gigantic ad budgets because its fans wanted to talk about it online. The idea for the Starbucks photo contest came from watching what people already do on Facebook and Twitter.

The reason for companies building this presence, I observed, is that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are ways of reaching many of your clients and building a relationship with them-and that’s what we call PR. It’s the building of a relationship with the public. You want to engage in interesting topics with blogging and microblogging using sites like Twitter where you have to express an entire thought in only 140 characters.

The largest coffee company in the world seems to be catching on.

Ali Magnano
Director of PR
Richter10.2 Media Group
www.richter10point2.com

White House Embraces Social Media.

What is Social Media? Wikipedia defines it. “At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content.”



With the success of Barack Obama’s campaign through the use of social media web tools to gain fund raising and support, the White House has officially launched pages on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. This transition keeps web savvy citizens up to date on the latest news and information. You can probably imagine that Obama himself is too busy lately to keep up with his old Twitter account, so this new account is the perfect way for others in the White House to “tweet” on his behalf and keep people informed about what’s going on.



In their ways of “old habits and stale thinking”, as stated by Obama, they are fundamentally changing the way that they do business in the White House. I believe the plan is to build a new foundation for the 21st century and the way to go about it is by reforming the government so it is more efficient and more creative-through social media.



In a recent blog post titled WhiteHouse 2.0, the White House says,
“In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find us in a number of other spots on the Web: Facebook .com/WhiteHouse, Myspace.com/WhiteHouse and Twitter.com/WhiteHouse.”



As you can see, technology has profoundly impacted how and where we gain information. These sites like Myspace, and Facebook have become the ways of communication to one another. If you look, you can see the demographics continue to shift. Now more than half of the Myspace visitors are age 35 or older. New users pour onto these sites every day, not only to keep up the communication with their friends but also to get insight on what’s happening around the world.



It seems the White House has noticed that WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administrators effort to reach the public quickly and effectively-but it isn’t the only way.




Ali Magnano

Director of PR

Richter10.2 Media Group

Barack Obama - Web PR Case Study

Close to 65% of the American population voted in this election, its highest turnout since the election of 1908. By all means, this election was profound in its results. Obama’s victory is deeply symbolic. Politics aside, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or member of the Green Party, we cannot overlook the power of real world community relations combined with the reach and engagement of online social communities and networks.

Online tools such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter contributed to the netting of record-breaking campaign funding and the staggering galvanization of a younger generation of first-time voters who truly made an impact and a difference. The Obama campaign leveraged multiple technology platforms, social immersion strategies and good old fashioned door-to-door relationship building to engage constituents directly, raising an astounding $600 million in campaign contributions.

On Twitter, Barack Obama sent messages to convert prospective voters to action and subsequently extend reward for the result. This is extremely effective.


On Facebook, the Obama page boasted over three million fans compared to McCain’s 618,000.

In a text message sent to supporters on the eve of the election, he reaffirmed that they will be part of Presidency moving forward;

“We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree…and to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."

**Messages like the ones above that are focused on your target public telling them about your product or service offerings will deliver results for your company.

This isn’t just about broadcasting content through new channels or merely soliciting feedback, participating in popular networks or actively listening, it’s the ability to identify and internalize themes to precipitate change and earn support through action – not just words.

For the first time, the U.S. President can simultaneously cultivate communities where people create, discover, and share information online.

For example: Obama Web PR Campaign Scope

- Launch a social network at Change.gov and/or whitehouse.gov

- Create a citizen feedback and collaboration page at GetSatisfaction

- Solicit policy proposals that people can vote up or down on Change For Us.

- Open the blog to comments on Change.gov (with community moderation).

- Address the country on YouTube and all other video networks with updates, polls, and also address issues in between official State of the Union broadcasts.

- Capture behind-the-scenes footage of the inner workings of the White House and share across all video networks.

- Create a user-generated channel on Magnify.net that features content from constituents.

-Create an @obamacares or @whitehousecares account on Twitter and other micro-blogging communities to listen and respond directly within each network.

- Complement the Presidential radio show with a regular podcast or livecast on uStream.tv or BlogTalkRadio and also interact with the people online, in real time.

- Publish speeches and important policy documents on document networks such as Scribd and Docstoc to be shared and disseminated throughout blogs and personal social profile pages.

- Create a portable and evolving Obama Widget using a SproutBuilder.

This is how a President, or any politician or business for that matter, can authentically connect with the people formerly known as the audience - in the real world.

**People shouldn’t only have a voice during an election time; listening and responding should be an ongoing practice and process of any office.

Adam Rooke,
Director of Operations Canada
Richter10.2 Media Group
http://www.whywebpr.com/adamrooke

Client Acquisitions...

There are many many ways to acquire new clients as a company, some difficult that require a lot of effort and persistence and some methods can be very effortless if done smartly and strategically.

I wanted to mention a few of the latter….
Here is a first thought, if you are trying to acquire new clients, the first step in doing so is name out who your target public actually is. In other words, who typically buys your product or service. This will be your easiest sale and most likely to buy. This is an important step if you want to make your life easier as it applies to sales. So here are few items to think about and use…

People like to do business with who they know, which means if they know you because you are neighbors or you went to high school together then the chances of them using you for a service or to buy product that they actually need are much greater. Just think about every time you purchased something, if you know a dentist and you need your teeth cleaned, chances are you are going to call the person you know. So with that said, there are ways to use this strategy online to become someone your target public “knows”. How about the many social media sites, by having your bio, picture and info about yourself etc, once you make connections, people feel they know you and will be more inclined to go to you for what they need.

Another item to think about is the fact of how many people there are in the world that most likely need your product or service but never buy from you simply on the basis that they don’t know about you and have never heard about you. There is millions of potential clients out there for your product or service yet they will never buy from you because you are unknown to them. So how can you make yourself known to this huge pool of potential buyers? Well, for starters I am guessing that every person you know has a computer and has an internet connection which means they are all online. With that said, all you have to do is figure out how to harness the vast reach of the internet to be able to make yourself known and to get in front or introduced to these people. That’s it!! Just make your product or service known to your potential public using the huge reach and easy access of the internet and drive sales through the roof.

The key objective for any company is to make relations with your target public in order to control and increase revenue growth. Don’t waste time on people who are never going to need or buy your service or product, make relations with your target public to introduce yourself and create huge amounts of sales opportunities.

Now, you can go about it in a passive manner (ads, keywords etc) and hope that someone types in the correct keyword or clicks on your ad that hopefully caught their attention so they can land on your site and hopefully call you. Or you can take an ACTIVE approach to prospecting and go out and find your target public demographic online, make an introduction, build relations and create reaches that results in sales for your company. Go and find the business, make your product or service known and get reaches to sell. Simple.
In order to execute the above steps, it is vitally important to use all of the tools and methods available today to broadly get attention, make yourself known and be visible online as well as actively using the tools to find your target public to make relations with.

Go out and get the business and take an active approach to boosting your sales!

Robert Cornish
Managing Director
Richter10.2 Media Group
Robert Cornish
+1 727 447 3600
+1 727 213 6386 fax
robertcornish@me.com

Hey, business owner! Web 2.0. Are you Savvy?

What business is McDonald's in?

Perhaps that is a strange way to begin, but only some people understand that burgers don't have very much to do with it. One of the largest real estate portfolios anywhere is probably a better guess.

What does this have to do with Web 2.0? What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is taking the boring, one-dimensional internet whereby someone simply views a page if it's interesting and turning that into an interactive experience whereby users contribute to a website. These contributions are in many forms; videos, blogs, profiles, updates, bookmarks, etc.

While such interaction makes for an amazing online experience, it was all done for one reason. This same reason that new social media sites pop up every day and MySpace was sold for $580 million.

If you think that reason is for teenagers to have profiles, you also only saw burgers when you saw McDonald's. Once again, it's all about real estate; advertising real estate.

What does this mean? Frankly, the administrators of such social media sites are trying to get more money for advertising. How? By making their sites read highly on search engine rankings.

This is done in two ways. First, they employ every possible SEO technique they can to make their page read highly. Second, the get as many users as possible. This is done by refining and offering as many user-friendly features as possible on their site.

What does this mean to you as a business owner?

It means that you could spend a lot of money using old hat SEO techniques which may well do fine in making your one site read well. Or, you can take advantage of the work social media sites put into reading well and the incredible features they offer. Because out of necessity, the features are truly amazing.

The point of this is that your competition thinks burgers. You need to see what is really going on. Take advantage. When you sign up for an account on a social media site, you automatically have every one of their programmers on your side.

Now. Imagine what would happen if you did that on ten sites...twenty...thirty?

Got it?

For God's sake, TAKE ADVANTAGE!

Spencer Barnes
Director of Delivery
Richter10.2 Media Group
spence@richter10point2.com

Are you effectively controlling attention to attract new clients?

These days the internet is fast becoming the one and only source for researching companies that potential clients use. If you think having a website and possibly even a blog is enough these days to attract new clients and sales, then I will ask you to think about this.

If someone finds out about you or your company via a business card you handed out or a postcard campaign or a referral from a friend or by whatever means and then research you on Google, what turns up? What are the results? Do you feel you are effectively representing the image and reputation you are going after? Are you controlling the search results to guarantee that your new reach gets the data they need to make a decision?

Here is the thing, nowadays it is vital to gain massive attention online to attract the clients you are looking for and turn reaches into sales. The way to do that is to control attention online by controlling every search result on Google to show what you want and to have enough good information that clearly states and defines who you are that you actually get business from the internet.

PR is the step behind marketing, advertising and promotion, you MUST do this before you do anything else otherwise you may as well throw your marketing dollars out the window.

Create a standard Web PR campaign that cleanly reflects who you are, what you do and creates a large enough reach to make an impact. You CAN use the internet as a very successful strategy to drive in sales, you just need to have the correct strategy.

Create attention, attract new clients and increase business.

Robert Cornish
Managing Director
Richter10.2 Media Group
robert@richter10point2.com

The Economy and Web PR as Promotion...

What is the solution for your company in a down economy?

Well, businesses have been taking a real hit lately with the economy having a major impact on their sales and bottom-line. So what are the correct actions to take in order to out-create the down economy and improve your overall sales in this type of economic scene?

Promotion and production and lot's of it. Let's face it, if you were comfortable last year with 10 sales of a given product which resulted in a certain amount of gross income to your company and you are doing the exact same things this year, you simply won't make it. So what do you do? How can you make up the damage with the economic shift to not only get back to the make break point but to actually be flourishing even in this economy?

Well, if you have ever experienced that when you promote your company, gain attention and are making yourself known to many new prospective clients, it resulted in booming sales and healthly profits then you should really look at what your promotional efforts are right now. Are you currently promoting your company on a massive scale? Or have you cut back on promotion, advertising, marketing etc? Many companies cut back and contract in a down economy when in actual fact they should be doing the exact opposite!

Now is the time to PROMOTE! You must look at your promotional efforts in all aspects and ask yourself if it is enough? Are you "getting in front" of enough people on a large enough scale? Are your efforts much larger than last year? If the answer is no then it is time to correct that and start to broadly make your company known on a massive scale, especially in this economy.

So, how should you promote to get your company known, gain attention and generate more leads which can be turned into sales to improve your profitability?

MASSIVE WEB PR CAMPAIGNS!

If you have ever researched a company online or found a company that you did business with using the web, then you know what a valuable tool the internet is and if used correctly can help you create a majority of new business for you.

Web PR campaigns handle 2 functions specifically:

1. Build your image online to create a positive public perception. This means that when one does a search online for your company, you control the search results fully and the results for your company are all positive and are what you would want your potential public to see about your company.

2. We create a massive amount of attention for your company online using many different tools to increase your companies reach and in essence get your company "in front" of millions of potential buyers of your product or service.

The fact is that a sale is made only after you have found a prospective buyer, had the opportunity to make yourself known to that prospective buyer and had the chance to interest them in your company to the point that they have reached for your product or service at which point they can be closed and the sale is finalized.

This is what a Web PR campaign handles. The idea is to make your company known, build positive public perception, control search results and reach millions of potential buyers in order to increase overall profits.

Now is the time to promote your company on a massive scale and Web PR campaigns can be used as a very effective tool to correctly position and promote your company online to gain attention, generate leads, create sales, help to make your marketing and advertising efforts "stick" and improve your overall bottom-line.

To find out how a Web PR campaign can help your company out-create the down economy, please contact us today.

Robert Cornish
Managing Director
Richter10.2 Media Group
robert@richter10point2.com

PR vs. Advertising

In smart promotion, one does not say “the public,” referring to all of humanity en masse, one says, “my public,” talking about his target demographic. It would be as ridiculous for the Leer Jet salesman to promote to the lowest income bracket as it would be to try and sell tractors to a stock-broker.

PR, or public relations, could be summed up as the perception one’s public has of one.

In the case of an individual, this would be as simple as the way he was dressed, his manners, his mannerisms and methods of speech, his aura of competence or lack thereof.

For instance, if someone walked into your place of business looking for a job, their public would be you, as they are actually selling themselves to you. What would happen if they arrived hungover, unwashed and with horrendous body odor? Even if they have a Harvard MBA, their impression on you is not going to be positive.

On the other hand, let’s say someone walks into the same business and is well groomed and dressed, is sharp and sincere in their communication and is passionate about doing a great job. Which person is getting hired?

The second applicant may be seemingly less qualified on paper, but he gets a job because his relations with the people around him are so well managed that the perception of him by them is excellent.

For a business, PR follows through as the same concept, but becomes even more important. Why? Imagine if your business produced high-quality tractors and it’s solvency depended on selling them, but the local farmers all agreed that your tractors were poorly made, because the exterior of your sales-yard is in disrepair and your employees are slobs.

All of the above are extreme examples, but I mean only to point out one thing. It is imperative to have an excellent public image. As further proof, think about how much money presidential candidates spend on their public relations!

Can you imagine what would happen if Obama or McCain wore jeans and a t-shirt during the conventions? It would near-on crash their campaign, because who wants a president that doesn’t even care enough to handle his appearance? It’s all PR.

Also, all examples so far have applied to the real world, what about in cyberspace? At first glance, this may seem like less of a factor, but is as much, if not more important to not just advertise, but have great PR online.

Advertising is just getting the word out. Great, let’s say you advertise and in the sea of other ads, you get someone interested. Then he clicks on your webpage and it is dinky, or nonexistent! You lose money, right there.

Or, here is the more likely scenario. Potential customer sees your advertisement. He then does his homework, by looking you up on a search engine. What does he see when he gets there?

Is your company’s PR good?

In most cases, he sees the competition and they have a nicer webpage and it ranks higher, so they obviously know what they’re doing. Or, your webpage reads first, but right underneath you have a blog post by the one disgruntled customer in the history of your company saying he got ripped-off. Or a thousand other bad PR scenarios that could happen.

What happened in that short space of time? You lost the customer. Frankly, if you show mediocrity in this crucial moment when someone is interested, you will hemorrhage business.

So in this we see that the effectiveness of advertising rests upon public image of your company. We can also see that nowadays, this public image is more important on the internet than just about anywhere else, as there is no salvaging an unimpressed potential customer when competition is just a click away.

Perhaps now it is easier to see the value of PR against advertising; with bad PR, advertising has no foundation on which to work. Plus, a lot of business will come through word of mouth and good PR in general.

Spencer Barnes
Director of Delivery
Richter10.2 Media Group
spence@richter10point2.com